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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

R.I.P. Richard Matheson

For those of you who have reading my blog for a while now, you know that I've actually spent the last few years reading the works of Richard Matheson at the rate of one book a month since July of 2011 - I finished earlier this year and one of my favourite aspects of his work was just how varied it was - everything from Science Fiction to Westerns, Mysteries and Crime Fiction to Horror and his own views on the afterlife, Matheson's work always impressed me, from both the basic ways in which his stories worked, to the incredible ideas he came up with.I couldn't possibly give a list of my favourite novels written by the author as they are so different from each other it's virtually impossible to compare and contrast them.The stories are great - whether you like WWII stories, straight up Horror or romance, he has stuff that would appeal to you, (My BFF Mike will happily point out that he wrote the original series Star Trek episode The Enemy Within), and I've barely even mentioned his work in television.In my adult life I've worked my way through the complete fiction of maybe a dozen authors; everyone from Robert B. Parker (Thrillers), to Pierre Berton (Canadian Non-Fiction and History), to Elmore Leonard (pretty much everything), but I can honestly say that Matheson is one of my favourites of the whole bunch - his work was massively influential (Stephen King is quoted as calling Matheson "...the author who influenced me most as a writer"), filled with interesting and intriguing ideas and great characters, and most importantly, a whole lot of great reads.